


A Term of Endearment

by illegals



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bottom Sherlock, During Reichenbach, I'm so sorry, Inside Jim's mind, Jim's POV, M/M, Mention of Sebastian Moran, Past Tense, Pre-Reichenbach, Probably depressing, Sheriarty - Freeform, Some Fluff, Some angst, Top Jim, first person POV, okay a lot of angst, slight AU, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:13:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1287394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illegals/pseuds/illegals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Moriarty is aware of what will happen in advance - he plans on it. The final problem, the fall, whatever those rats of media like to call it, is his grand farewell.</p><p>A small study of Jim's mindset and obsession over Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Term of Endearment

_I’m not sure I fit into either of those categories._

Love or fear – was it supposed to be that easy? Was I supposed to be able to gauge my decisions based off of a fucking meter between “love” and “fear”? It wasn’t that easy.

It wasn’t that easy.

If it was that easy, I wouldn’t have felt the wind take my breath away when I saw him there. I wouldn’t have felt my heart drop long before I knew he’d have faked it. If it was that easy, I wouldn’t have dreaded it.

If it was that easy, I wouldn’t have chosen him to be the last thing I saw before the sound drowned me and the metal filled my mouth.

I wouldn’t have chosen him.

\----

Alone. I am alone.

From the first moment I’d laid my cold eyes on my strongest obsession from across the pool, I knew I would stay that way. He was intrigued, yes, but wasn’t he always? The great Sherlock Holmes – curious about everything, caring of the important. I was not important.

I was not important.

I was an obstacle, an insect, a pest, to get around, to kill, to beat, but I knew from the moment I laid my eyes on him that I would take what I could get. That was all I had.

\----

I tried to impress him. He’d seemed so for a short while, but as he almost always seemed to, he quickly lost interest. He’d beaten me. Even I knew that. So, I knew I’d need to make a grand departure. I wanted to leave a wake of fear behind me. I wanted the world down on its knees. I wanted everyone’s eyes to be as cold as mine. I wanted to matter. I wanted to prove him wrong.

Oh, was I wrong.

\----

I already knew the date, the exact time, of my demise. I was good that way. I would give Sherlock a game. I would leave my name on his lips just the way I’d done so a week prior. This time, the context would be different and I hoped, oh god I hoped, that he would feel the boulder slam down upon his chest. Hope was all I had now; hope and a single memory from that unfortunate unexpected day seven days before. I wanted to rip into Sherlock’s chest and slice out his heart, vein and artery and fibre with precision, but I’d barely scraped his skin. 

He’d torn mine off.

\----

One week, seven days, one hundred and sixty-eight hours divided me between this exact moment, suspended in space and devouring, and my last farewell to a boy who never came back down. I was alone in a literal sense; not even Sebastian bothered me with his presence. I chose for it to be this way. I wanted to try one more time. Maybe.

Anxious, though unnoticeably so, I pulled the dead weight of my mobile across the dark motel room’s table. Pressing the power button, my eyes shrunk away from the sudden intrusion of white light on the screen that illuminated a portion of the comfortingly dark room.

0:03

That explained the lack of lighting. I lost track of time. Tearing my strained eyes from the device, my gaze fell upon the barren wall placed just ahead of me, behind the table that separated it from me. The stark light from my mobile made the texture in the wallpaper too loud.

I was not alone.

The air encased me to that spot, sitting there at this rubbish table in this unspeakable motel, but its embrace was soft, warm. It encouraged me.

Opening my mobile to its home screen, I brought up my most recent text conversation with him, with Sherlock Holmes, but I did not smile at the words. I tapped a new one in and hit send before my logical sense could catch up with me.

It seemed to have abandoned me.

[Motel on Milton. Come and play. JM]  
[Why? SH]  
[See. JM]

It had been awhile, minutes, hours, I didn’t know, until his response.

[Alright. SH]

\----

Another hour, at least, of sitting and waiting, freezing in the holding hostility of the room had passed before a small, but confident, knock sounded at my door. It was him. I could tell.

Sherlock knew from the moment I opened the door and welcomed him into the darkness’s waves what was going on.

I was alone.

I needed one last chance.

I needed him.

He didn’t say anything and neither did I. We didn’t need to. Even though we could just barely make out each other’s silhouettes, we could read everything we needed off of each other. I was desperate, though controlled in the matter, and he was contemplating, but lenient. He would allow me this.

It was a mess of hands and clothes and questioning glances, but I erased all of that the moment I’d pulled him onto my lips. I was not careful or guarded, nor did I hold back any of the bottled-up passion that’d been burning in the back of my mind and spine for him. His hands, wherever they made contact with me, left my skin open and bleeding and warm. I like to think mine did the same to him.

But, it was the moment where I could see his pupils, swollen and clouded, drown out the ice of his iris that I started to cave into it. The mattress was unwelcoming and the duvet harsh, but we were meant to be like this. He was showcasing his trust for me, which was unexpected, by allowing me home above him, in him, surrounding him.

In the moment where Sherlock had uttered a small, “Jim”, into the air, breathless and hazy, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. I was aware that he knew this, too, and that was all it took to melt away the world around me. I had Sherlock, beautiful, marble, smart-ass Sherlock, finally within my grasp. He allowed me this.

After having collapsed into each other, chasing our lost breaths and calming our fluttering hearts, I pulled him into my arms, bare and trembling and utterly _Sherlock_ , and mumbled everything I possibly could’ve about how much I admired him, about how much I adored him. All he did was relax into my embrace and murmur an “Okay”. It was all I needed and it was all I would receive.

I carved his pulse into my brain and his steady breathing into my mind, determined to save this, before I fell asleep, too, just like that – nude and cold and not alone. I had Sherlock Holmes and he had me, if only for a couple of hours.

\----

It was the slight stream of natural light hitting my lidded eyes that woke me. When I opened them, I was blinded by the lack of warmth against my chest. He wasn’t gone, but he’d awoken before I had.

“Good morning, James,” he’d greeted me, likely having had noticed my stirring.

“Morning, Sherlock,” I remember mumbling back.

When he strode back over to the bed, he was clothed, Sherlock Holmes the detective, and not mine. Even though I was bare and cold and he was the opposite, I was comfortable under his eyes, hard and oceanic once more, as he sat on the edge of the bed. I sat up and moved towards him, against him, and he leaned into me.

“Stay,” I remember mumbling into his hair.

He just shook his head. I’d already known the answer. He needn’t had said anything and he didn’t. We sat there, together, though daringly separated compared to what we’d been hours before, for a handful of minutes. They felt like hours to me. I didn’t ask him again when he finally stood and left without another look back. I could still feel him against my skin.

\----

The day was never mentioned again. I was going to say something to him, but one look told me not to. My last chance hadn’t had been enough to sway him. It’d been close, it could see it in the way he glanced at me, questioning and torn, but this was Sherlock Holmes. He didn’t feel.

He didn’t love.

Not me.

I accepted it without falter in my stance. Sherlock would know, but I could handle that. I wouldn’t be around much longer to dwell on it.

\----

The day my mobile had lit up with his name, the exact day I’d been predicting, I was finally relieved. My chest had been aching since the detective had left the motel, but I knew this day was the one I was allowed relief.

I was at the rooftop before he.

My grand headlining act had left quite the impression on him; this I could see in his frame when he finally showed. I smiled, played that stupidly ironic song, delivered my lines without seam. He could see through my transparent disguise. No one else could. I was relying on this. He couldn’t see my real intentions until our hands joined. My flesh burned in his. He could feel it.

“Well, good luck with that,” were the last words to leave my lungs before he saw.

He knew.

His hand was ripped from mine while I swung the gun up and into my mouth. He jumped away from me, startled, but I could see it in his eyes. My name, James Moriarty, lingered on his lips, left unspoken, while I finished my performance flawlessly. Sherlock Holmes, the detective who gave me unfulfilled hope, was the last thing I saw before the sound drowned me and the metal filled my mouth.

I would’ve told him that I loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> There wasn't really much of a plot to this. It was just a study of Jim I had too much muse for. Criticism is appreciated and taken into account. Thank you. :)


End file.
